


It's the Thought That Counts

by aretia



Series: Bureaucratic Holiday Gifts [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Shopping, Established Relationship, Holidays, Misunderstandings, Multi, POV Outsider, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:34:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27809938
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aretia/pseuds/aretia
Summary: When Aziraphale, Beelzebub, Crowley, and Gabriel go to the mall to shop for holiday gifts for their significant others, some nosy humans get the wrong idea.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Beelzebub/Crowley/Gabriel (Good Omens)
Series: Bureaucratic Holiday Gifts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2034811
Comments: 6
Kudos: 28





	It's the Thought That Counts

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MerenwenNolat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MerenwenNolat/gifts).
  * Inspired by [How to tell if polyamory is right for you, a Helpful Guide by the Principality Aziraphale](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24789142) by [MerenwenNolat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MerenwenNolat/pseuds/MerenwenNolat). 



> Merenwennolat, I am delighted that I met you. You are the most fun person to brainstorm with and have deep discussions with. I wish I could listen to you talk for hours, because you have extremely interesting and important things to say. I credit you with the birth of the Ineffable Polycule ship, so I hope you enjoy my spin on the relationship that you already put in the hard work to create. (To make sense for readers who haven't read Merenwennolat's fic, all you need to know is that Aziraphale, Crowley, Beelzebub, and Gabriel are in a happy polyamorous relationship.)

Ever since Beelzebub and Gabriel had relocated to Earth and invaded Aziraphale and Crowley’s domestic bliss[1], the so-called traitors had dragged their former bosses into more human traditions than they had ever expected. For their first holiday season on Earth together, the four of them had all come to the mall to shop for Christmas gifts for each other. Aziraphale had gone with Beelzebub so that he could secretly find a gift for Crowley, but three hours in, their search had yielded nothing. The two of them had settled down at a bar for an afternoon drink to recuperate.

“We’ve been to every alternative clothing store in the mall, and I still haven’t found anything Crowley would like,” Aziraphale sighed in dismay. “Maybe he’s right. I don’t have much in the way of a modern fashion sense.”

“Just buy him one of those plastic thingies,” muttered Beelzebub, their voice muffled by their arms where they had rested their head on top of the bar. They waved their hand in the air, as if trying to grasp the word they wanted.

“ _Gift cards,_ ” Aziraphale corrected them, once he realized what they were talking about. “And where’s the thought in that? The point of a gift is to show someone how much you care about them.” Currently, he was grappling with the fact that he cared about Crowley a great deal more than he was capable of expressing through any purchased gift. He had other ways of conveying that sentiment, of course, many of them involving a bed and some ropes, but he had always been interested in doing things the traditional human way for the time.

Beelzebub made a gagging noise. “Bleh. That sounds like so much effort. If it was me, trying to find a gift for Gabriel, I would just go into the nearest suit store, pick up the first purple thing I see, and be done with it.”

Aziraphale’s just-enough-of-a-bastard smile spread across his face. “That’s not entirely thoughtless. You know that he likes suits and purple. A gift like that would show that you care about him at least a little bit.”

That made Beelzebub jerk up from the bar, their face flushing bright red. “Don’t even go there.”

Aziraphale only smiled brighter, and patted them on the shoulder. “We can go pick out a gift for Gabriel later, and I won’t tell anyone,” he said with a conspiratorial wink. “I think it would be lovely if you wanted to participate in the human gift-giving custom.”

Beelzebub groaned, and leaned over to rest their head on Aziraphale’s shoulder. They snuggled into the soft cushion of several layers of fabric atop more layers of angelic padding. “You know that was one of ours, right?” said the demon. “The commercialization of Christmas?”

“Oh, believe me, I know,” Aziraphale said, with the weary sigh of someone who had been over this conversation a hundred times before. “Crowley wouldn’t stop bragging about it. He was very proud of himself for coming up with _celebrity Christmas albums._ ”

“And now he has to listen to Gabriel singing along to them,” Beelzebub said with a snicker.

“Crowley did always have a tendency to run afoul of his own schemes,” Aziraphale agreed. There was only one album that the Bentley hadn’t managed to turn into _Best of Queen,_ and that was the Christmas CD that Gabriel had brought along to torture them, or as he put it, get them into the holiday spirit.

“The only good thing about this is the drinks, if you ask me,” said Beelzebub, picking up their glass of eggnog.

The bartender, a tall woman with auburn hair, stared at Beelzebub as they tipped the glass back and downed the entire thing. “Do you want another one, uh…” She hesitated, as many humans did while trying to decide whether to call Beelzebub _sir_ or _miss_ , and made the wise choice to say neither.

Beelzebub plonked the empty glass down on the counter with a commanding look. The bartender refilled their glass, all the while glancing between them and Aziraphale as if she knew them from somewhere but couldn’t quite put her finger on where. The intensity of her gaze unnerved Aziraphale, even as she moved farther down the bar to wipe up some spilled eggnog.

“Maybe we should get going,” Aziraphale suggested, taking a prim sip of his spiced hot cider. “I’m sure Gabriel and Crowley are working hard looking for gifts, and we’re just sitting here, not getting anything done.”

“Those two idiots?” scoffed Beelzebub. “I bet they haven’t even found their way out of the parking garage yet.”

~

Crowley wasn’t sure which one of them looked more out of place in the mall’s nondescript chain bookstore. After all, Crowley tried to dress like the kind of human who had never willingly opened a book in his life, but Gabriel genuinely behaved as if he had never seen one before. It had been Gabriel’s idea to come to the bookshop to pick out a gift for Aziraphale, as a sort of conciliatory offering, since their relationship had been strained in the past[2]. Crowley had gone along with him, not expecting to find anything there himself. He planned to find his own gift for Aziraphale the same way he did all of his best work: panicking under the pressing weight of a deadline.

“What about this one?” Gabriel asked, pulling a book out of the shelf at random.

“Nah, ‘m sure he’s already read that one,” Crowley said, after one glance at the romance novel in Gabriel’s hand, one that he had seen poorly hidden under some papers on Aziraphale’s desk. “I’d recognize those buttocks anywhere.”

“Really?” Gabriel said, shaking his head, and placed the book back on the shelf. “I never would have guessed that he was even into that kind of stuff.”

“You’d be surprisssed,” Crowley drawled, his voice slipping into its natural sibilance.

“Why is this so difficult?” Gabriel groaned, his shoulders rising and falling in a shrug. “I used to like spending the holidays on Earth. Sprinkling little miracles around, admiring the decorations, and watching _The Sound of Music_ on TV. But now, with all this gift-buying stuff, it’s just stressing me out.”

“That’s because you care about someone for the first time,” Crowley sneered. “Maybe if you hadn’t spent so long belittling him for his interests, it wouldn’t be so hard for you to figure out what he likes now.”

“Hey! That’s uncalled for,” Gabriel said indignantly. “I’ve apologized for all that.”

“Maybe so, but us demons aren’t the forgiving sort,” said Crowley, with just a hint of serpentine venom in his voice.

“I think I deserve some credit,” Gabriel insisted. “I suggested coming to a bookstore. Aziraphale likes books, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah, but we’re not going to find a book Aziraphale doesn’t have in a bookstore, or anywhere that isn’t an auction house,” said Crowley. “How about we make this easier? What’s something else that Aziraphale likes? Come on, use that big empty head of yours and think about it.”

“You’re lucky I don’t smite you right now,” Gabriel muttered. Then, the realization of what Crowley meant dawned on his features. “You’re not talking about… gross matter, are you?”

“Yes, you idiot,” said Crowley. “He likes wine, cheese, chocolates. Stuff like that is way easier than trying to find a book he hasn’t read. Maybe we can find a gift for Beelzebub too.”

“But how am I supposed to know what to get?” Gabriel asked.

“You’ll just have to try it for yourself,” Crowley said with a wicked grin.

“Eugh. No,” Gabriel said, his whole body recoiling at the suggestion. 

“We’ll wear you down eventually,” Crowley assured him.

“Do you eat?” Gabriel asked abruptly. “I’ve never seen you eat.”

“Eh. I eat when the mood strikes me,” said Crowley. “I don’t have the same rapturous enjoyment of food as those two do, but I like eating.”

“But you don’t actually need to eat,” Gabriel pointed out, pedantically. 

“It’s not about _need_ in a biological sense. It’s about what you enjoy. Something I think you could stand to learn a thing or two about,” Crowley said, poking Gabriel in the arm. “Come on, let’s go find some gift baskets or something.”

To Crowley’s chagrin, Gabriel was already approaching one of the bookshop employees, a young lady with bouncy blonde curls. He said in his booming voice, “Excuse me, miss! Do you by any chance know where we could obtain some gross matter?”

The girl stared at him with her mouth agape, as if he were an alien, which in a way he was. Crowley had to resist the urge to press his palm to his forehead. “Food. He means food,” Crowley explained, coming up next to Gabriel’s side. “Chocolates or something like that.”

“Uh, well… gentlemen, this is a bookshop,” she said, seemingly at a loss for anything else to say. “We have a few chocolates at the front counter, but you might be better off trying the sweets shop next door.”

“Great, thanks!” said Gabriel. “And happy holidays!” Crowley turned and walked away as quickly as possible, and Gabriel fell into step beside him. 

Then, suddenly, Crowley felt a warmth against his hand, and looked down to see Gabriel’s large hand wrapped around his. When Crowley looked up at him in confusion, Gabriel said, “Just making sure that you don’t wander off.”

Crowley snorted. “If anything, you’re the one who’s more likely to wander off because you saw a pretty Christmas display or something. But all right, fine.” As they walked out of the bookshop, Crowley didn’t pull his hand away.

~

Clara got the text from Adriana as soon as she stepped out of the bar for her break. _Urgent. Meet me at the food court._ She hurried across the mall, and barely had time to pick up the customary coffee for both of them before finding Adriana in the food court, her blonde hair shining like a beacon in the crowd.

Clara didn’t think of herself as the type to walk all the way across the mall on her lunch break to hear some idle gossip, but she would do just about anything if it involved spending more time with her best friend Adriana. She had gotten a job as a bartender at the same mall where Adriana worked at a bookstore, solely for the sake of being near her. She both hoped for and dreaded what would happen if Adriana ever figured out what her devotion meant.

“So what was this news that you so urgently needed to tell me, and you couldn’t tell me over text?” Clara asked, setting the two cups of coffee down on the table.

“I’ll tell you, but you need to keep it quiet,” Adriana said in a hushed whisper. 

“Right. As if I’m the one who goes spreading gossip around,” Clara retorted, before asking, “What is it?”

Adriana glanced around furtively, as if watching for anyone who could hear her. “Remember that nice man I told you about who comes into the store a lot? The fussy bookseller in vintage clothes, and his husband who dresses like a retired rock star?”

“Yeah, I remember,” said Clara, wondering where she was going with this. Clara had met the couple one time, when she had visited Adriana at the bookshop, but she mostly only knew of them from Adriana’s tales.

“Well, I just saw his husband in the bookshop…” Adriana said, drawing in a deep, dramatic breath. “With another man! Some handsome American businessman with a too-bright smile. Didn’t look like his type at all.”

“No way,” said Clara. Her thoughts flashed back to the bar, and that man who had looked so strangely familiar, and his companion who was overly fond of eggnog.

“It’s tragic, isn’t it?” Adriana sighed. “Do you think we should tell that lovely man that his husband is cheating on him? It’d be the right thing to do, wouldn’t it?”

“I’m not sure about that,” said Clara. “I think he already knows.”

“What do you mean?” Adriana gasped.

“That man you’re talking about, I saw him today at the bar, and he had a date too,” Clara said. “Someone short with black hair. My point is, maybe they’re both cheating because they suspect the other is doing it. Mutually assured destruction.”

“Oh, that’s awful,” Adriana said, her shoulders drooping. She looked down into her coffee cup like she was about to cry. “Those two looked like they were so in love. It breaks my heart to know that their relationship is just as messy as everyone else’s.”

Clara was going to roll her eyes at Adriana for getting so invested in a stranger’s relationship, but then she saw something over her friend’s shoulder and her eyes went wide. “Adriana, don’t look now, but I think that’s them behind you.”

Adriana’s head swiveled to look over her shoulder. There, a few tables down the row, were the people they were talking about, the blond man and his petite date. They didn’t seem to notice Adriana staring, as they had settled down in front of Chinese takeout and were in the midst of an animated conversation.

“You weren’t kidding,” Adriana murmured. Then, she looked back in Clara’s direction, and let out a panicked squeak.

“What?” said Clara. This time she was the one who turned to look.

“It’s the other two,” Adriana whimpered. Sure enough, the redheaded husband and another man in a suit were walking through the food court, hand in hand, headed straight towards the table down the row. “This is not going to be good… Clara, what are you doing?”

“If a shouting match is about to break out, I want to get it on camera,” Clara said, aiming her phone at the table.

“Stop that!” Adriana scolded, shoving Clara’s wrist down. “Honestly, and you give me a hard time for being nosy.”

“Shh,” Clara hissed. “Let’s just watch and see what happens.”

What happened was not what either of them had expected. Once the pair reached the table, the other two stood up to greet them. There was no explosion of shouting or rude gestures. Instead, the tall man in the suit kissed the blond on the cheek, then kissed the short one on the forehead, before tucking them underneath his arm. The fussy bookseller embraced the wannabe rock star and pulled him into a kiss, before the four of them walked off together.

“Huh. That was… different,” Clara mused. “I guess your fantasy isn’t shattered after all, right, Adriana?”

“Oh, thank goodness,” Adriana said, her shoulders visibly relaxing with relief. “I know it might be cliché to say this, given the season, but maybe true love is real after all.”

“Yeah,” said Clara. Her throat tightened as she glanced down at the table, and the phone that was still in her hand, and Adriana’s hand that was still on top of her wrist. Warmth seeped into her skin from the point of contact. “Maybe it is.”

~

1Depending on who you asked. Gabriel would say that he improved upon it.[return to text]

2Understatement of the century.[return to text]

**Author's Note:**

> Adriana and Clara are cameos from my fic, Ineffable Fangirls. They are also in an AU and this story is not continuous with that one. Adriana and Clara originate from “our” universe in which Aziraphale and Crowley are fictional. However, there is one similarity, which is that Clara is pining in every universe.


End file.
